Rascals case in brief
In the beginning, in 1989, more than 90 children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina, accused a total of 20 adults with 429 instances of sexual abuse over a three-year period. It may have all begun with one parent’s complaint about punishment given her child.
Among the alleged perpetrators: the sheriff and mayor. But prosecutors would charge only Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris, Elizabeth “Betsy” Kelly, Robert “Bob” Kelly, Willard Scott Privott, Shelley Stone and Dawn Wilson – the Edenton 7.
Along with sodomy and beatings, allegations included a baby killed with a handgun, a child being hung upside down from a tree and being set on fire and countless other fantastic incidents involving spaceships, hot air balloons, pirate ships and trained sharks.
By the time prosecutors dropped the last charges in 1997, Little Rascals had become North Carolina’s longest and most costly criminal trial. Prosecutors kept defendants jailed in hopes at least one would turn against their supposed co-conspirators. Remarkably, none did. Another shameful record: Five defendants had to wait longer to face their accusers in court than anyone else in North Carolina history.
Between 1991 and 1997, Ofra Bikel produced three extraordinary episodes on the Little Rascals case for the PBS series “Frontline.” Although “Innocence Lost” did not deter prosecutors, it exposed their tactics and fostered nationwide skepticism and dismay.
With each passing year, the absurdity of the Little Rascals charges has become more obvious. But no admission of error has ever come from prosecutors, police, interviewers or parents. This site is devoted to the issues raised by this case.
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Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
Junior Chandler faces 30th year in prison
April 4, 2016
Junior Chandler may be the last still-imprisoned victim of the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care panic.
Chandler was a driver for a Madison County, N.C., day care. The prosecutor alleged that Chandler, in the words of appellate attorney Mark Montgomery, “would drive off his route to a park by a river, strip the children of their clothes, troop them down to the river, put them in a rowboat, commit various sexual acts, put them back on the bus and take them home.”
Based almost exclusively on hearsay and no-longer-permissible expert “vouching,” Chandler was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to two life sentences. This month he will begin his 30th year behind bars for a crime that never happened.
Could N&O have thwarted ‘prosecutor gone wild’?
March 18, 2013
“When I look back, I think my greatest mistake (was) my failure as editor of the News & Observer to make sure we had a top-notch investigative reporter on the Little Rascals case in Edenton.
“Our regional person was adequate as a regional correspondent, a full-time staffer, but he was not the person to see what was wrong with this case and to do the necessary digging to root it out.
“That prosecutor had gone wild, eaten up by ambition, I suppose, to hang these people, these people who operated the Little Rascals Day Care Center, no matter how.
“…All the kids talked about being borne through the air this way and that way and flying all over, and it was crazy stuff.
“As it turned out, (the Edenton Seven were eventually released), but it wrecked their lives forever. And I still feel sorry about that, still feel sorry about it.
“I think had we sent someone like Pat Stith down there, that would have been it.
“But see, at that time, Edenton already was a pretty far reach for the News & Observer…. (Our) pulling out of eastern North Carolina (to cut expenses) might have affected my thinking (about) whether we were really responsible for doing something about that miscarriage of justice.”
– From an interview with Claude Sitton, editor of the Raleigh News & Observer from 1968 to 1990 (Southern Oral History Program, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Chapel Hill, July 12, 2007)
Dennis Rogers: Who has the courage to make amends?
Dec. 21, 2013
As noted here and here, News & Observer columnist Dennis Rogers was among the too-few voices of skepticism about the Little Rascals case. Today Rogers is mostly retired, but he continues to lament the state’s failure to take responsibility for its willful prosecution of seven innocent defendants:
“North Carolina has a sad reputation for misguided justice. There is no better example than the plight of the Edenton Seven. The government destroyed lives and families in its fevered rush to find wrong where there was none.
“It takes political courage to right painful and embarrassing wrongs from 25 years ago. The case of the Edenton Seven offers those who would claim the mantle of leadership in our state an opportunity to demonstrate that they are the kind of people we need in Raleigh.
“Silence in the face of such obvious injustice is cowardice.”
In Raleigh, even justice delayed is hard to come by
Dec. 3, 2012
Exoneration is in the air!
From Texas to New York – and of course here in North Carolina – more and more prosecutorial abuses are being dug up, dusted off and exposed to long-delayed doses of daylight.
If you’re keeping score, the National Registry of Exoneration has just hit quadruple digits – that’s Bob Kelly, Dawn Wilson and 998 other wrongfully convicted defendants.
So what are the prospects that the State of North Carolina will at last release a Duke-lacrosse-style statement of innocence for the Edenton Seven?
Since last summer, when my petition was kissed off by Mark Davis, general counsel to Gov. Bev Perdue, and I was advised to try Attorney General Roy Cooper, not a peep has been heard in response. It would take a greater optimist than me to believe this silence suggests ongoing thoughtful contemplation.
As the governor prepares to leave office, a valued ally of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org used his access to lobby on behalf of the defendants. But pardon applications have been torrential, he was told, and the Edenton Seven case isn’t among those Perdue is considering.
That still leaves the attorney general – or does it, Mr. Cooper?